Endearing Young Charms Series

by M. C. Beaton

  She walked over to the looking glass and studied her own face. It was not a peasant face, she decided. It was not low or brutish. In fact, thought Emily fiercely, I do look like a lady!

  Emily began to pace restlessly up and down the room. An idea was beginning to form in her head. Sir Peregrine had been a malicious old man, of that there was no doubt. Only look at the cruelty of his idea of having the secret of her birth exposed before all his relatives!

  Now, suppose… just suppose… he had lied about her birth. Just suppose she was not a serving maid’s daughter at all! The thought was balm to her soul, which was still smarting under the humiliation of her treatment at the hands of Lord Storm.

  She had a mad longing to prove that she, Emily, was born in wedlock and of noble birth. Emily was not used to indulging in fantasies, but she had been so disappointed to find that Storm had not called—so furious with herself to find that she still longed for him with every fiber of her being—that she seized on the daydream of her birth and held it close.

  She would go to Dover, she would go to the Pelican, and there she was sure she would find the secret of her birth. There she was sure she would find that her mother had not been some low serving wench but a lady who had been visiting the inn.

  Suddenly wild with excitement, she set in motion the arrangements for her journey to Dover. It was only when she set out some three days later with only her maid and groom in attendance that she realized she had not warned Jimmy to guard Duke with extra care until her return.

  But surely with the Manleys held beyond the gates there could be no danger.

  Dover lay spread out under the calm heat haze of a perfect summer’s day. Gulls swooped and screamed over the sparkling sea. The town was pretty and picturesque, the Old Castle with all its fortifications on one side and on the other a chalk hill, well-nigh perpendicular, rising from sixty to a hundred feet higher than the tops of the houses.

  On the south side of the town, the lofty cliff mentioned by Shakespeare in King Lear was hollowed out like a honeycomb with trench upon trench and bombproof cavern upon bombproof cavern. It had been worked a few years ago when Napoleon’s invasion of England had seemed imminent, although why anyone would think he would choose that particular cliff to land on instead of, say, Romney Marsh or Pevensy Level was difficult to understand.

  Anyway it had been an expensive brainchild of the ministers, who thought a brilliant idea would be to hide the English troops in these catacombs until the French had landed and then attack them from behind. It was estimated to have cost millions of pounds; there was more brick and stone buried in this hill than would go to build a new cottage for every laboring man in the counties of Kent and Sussex. It was nonetheless an endless source of conversation, and the people of Dover were quite proud to have this shining example of the stupidity of the British government to show visitors.

  Emily’s spirits rose even more when the Pelican came into view. It was a handsome posting inn on the outskirts of the town with an air of quiet prosperity. She arranged rooms and a private parlor for herself and her maid, noting with delight the furnishings and the quiet, well-trained servants. It seemed as if nothing—at least nothing sordid—could have taken place here.

  After she had dined, Emily sent for the landlord and said she would like to ask him a few questions about the inn. She wanted to find out about someone who had been resident in the inn about eighteen years ago.

  The landlord, Mr. Barret, scratched his wig and looked perplexed.

  “I don’t know as I can help you there, miss,” he said. “I took over this here inn about ten years ago, and I don’t be from Dover myself. But I believe the old owner, Jem Currie, is still living somewheres in the town.”

  “Could you find out his directions?” asked Emily, swallowing her disappointment.

  Mr. Barret bowed and said he would do his best. It was nearly an hour before he returned. Mr. Currie, it transpired, lived in Salt Alley down by the harbor. Mr. Barret would like to warn miss that it was not a very salubrious neighborhood, and he advised her to take her groom with her.

  Emily did not want witnesses to any revelations about her past, but she compromised by taking her traveling coach and telling both coachman and groom to leave her a little way from Salt Alley and to come looking for her if she did not return in half an hour.

  Salt Alley was a small, dirty, narrow, odoriferous street with a jumble of tall buildings on either side, blocking out the evening light. Emily nervously asked a slatternly woman where Jem Currie lived, and the woman took her pipe from her mouth and jerked her head to where an old man sat on a bench outside one of the dark doorways.

  Heart thumping hard, Emily went forward and sat down on the bench beside him.

  “Mr. Currie?” she asked shyly.

  He was large and dropsical, and his clothes were a mass of stains. His dirty neckcloth was untied and hung almost to his knees, and his swollen legs were encased in dirty bandages. He wore a dirty old Cadogan wig, stiff with pomatum and flour and generous host to a small army of livestock.

  “Heh!” he said, turning a swollen red face on her. “What d’ye want, missie?”

  To her relief, his red-veined eyes were quite bright and kind, and he was fairly sober.

  “I believe you once owned the Pelican,” said Emily.

  “That I did, missie.”

  “I wonder if you can remember a… a… person called Jessie Winters?”

  “Jessie! ’Course I remember Jessie. Now I come to look at you, miss, you’ve a look of old Jessie. A right one she was.”

  Emily took her courage in both hands. “You see, I have reason to believe Jessie was my mother. Was she, perhaps, a lady resident at the inn?”

  “Naow! Not our Jessie. Jessie was serving wench. Country girl she was. Just walks in one day and asks for a job. No one knew where she come from. She was like you, miss, but not like you, if you take my meanin’. Black hair, she had, like a raven’s wing, and them bold blue eyes. All the lads were mad for her. This be awkward, miss, but is you that there Sir Peregrine Manley’s girl?”

  “I don’t know,” said Emily miserably. “He said I was Jessie’s daughter, fathered by him.”

  He took her hand in his swollen one and gave it a clumsy pat. “Well, I’d best give you the whole story.

  “This Sir Peregrine, he took a real fancy to Jessie. Well, we all warned her it didn’t mean no marriage, but she just laughed and told us to mind our own business. Well, he stayed a whole month and then one day he was gone and good riddance. Arter that, Jessie began to increase, if you take my meaning. I was for riding to where Sir Peregrine lived with a shotgun, but Jessie, she shrugs and says it was as much her fault as his.

  “So without telling her, I writes to Sir Peregrine and tells him that our Jessie is in the family way and what’s he going to do about it?

  “I thought he’d swear it was someone else’s, the way most of ’em do, but he arrived one day and he just takes Jessie off, saying to me she’ll be back after the child is born.

  “And that’s what happens. Our Jessie’s dropped off at the inn some months later and she looks a bit pale and tired, like, but she says to me, she says, ‘I come back to work, Jem.’ And that’s all. Never mentioned the babe from one day’s end to the other.”

  “Poor mother,” said Emily softly. “How she must have hated and distrusted men after an experience like that.”

  “What, Jessie? Naow, Jessie couldn’t leave the lads alone. Three months later, she married Aaron Cobbett, plowman up at Five Elms, but he beat her something awful and she died giving birth to his child. Poor Jessie. I still mind her, laughing and joking with the fellows in the tap. There was a lot of gypsy in Jessie….”

  “Everything all right, miss?”

  Emily looked up and found her coachman, standing a little away, looking at her anxiously.

  “Yes,” said Emily numbly. “I shall leave now, Mr. Currie. Thank you for your information. Good day to you.”

&n
bsp; “And a good day to you,” said the old man cheerfully. He opened his mouth to say more, but for the first time his shrewd eyes took in the richness of Emily’s gown and the splendor of the waiting coachman in pink plush and glass wig. “I’m sure our Jessie would have been a great lady, given the chance,” he whispered. “But you can’t be a lady an you ain’t brought up to it.”

  Emily thanked him again. On stiff legs, she walked out of Salt Alley and climbed into the coach.

  She wished she had never come to Dover. Now she would carry a picture of her mother in her head that she did not want. A mother who was a slut.

  Like me, thought Emily, the hot tears streaming down her face. No wonder he did not want to marry me.

  And such was her shame and misery that she quite forgot it was she who had broken off the engagement.

  As her coach drove through the village of Baxtead on the last lap of the weary journey home, she saw Lord Storm.

  He was seated on horseback, talking to two other horsemen. One of the men said something, and Lord Storm threw back his head and laughed. He looked elegant and Carefree and heartbreakingly handsome.

  Emily crouched back in the shadow of the carriage so that he would not see her, so that his eyes would not rake indifferently over her, so that he would not read in her eyes the story of Jessie Winters, the mother who had given her body away and then her baby with the self-centered lack of conscience of a common slattern.

  Chapter 8

  All Emily wanted to do on reaching Manley Court was to have a hearty cry, a hot bath, and twelve hours’ sleep.

  But Rogers was waiting for her with the information that Jimmy had serious news and that as soon as he had heard Miss Winters’s carriage he had had the boy put in the library to await her.

  Jimmy was standing to attention on the hearth when she entered, with Duke lying at his feet Duke came padding up as soon as he saw Emily, rose up on his hind legs, and planted a wet kiss on her face.

  These are the only two I have anything in common with, thought Emily, fighting back the tears.

  Aloud she asked, “What’s the matter, Jimmy? What has been happening?”

  Jimmy proceeded to unfold a shocking tale of several attempts on the dog’s life. On the day after Emily had left, he had been running through the grounds with Duke, heading for one of their favorite spots, when his eye had caught the gleam of metal in the long grass just in time, and he had called Duke to heel. When he parted the grass, he had found a wicked steel mantrap carefully concealed. He had reported the matter to the head gamekeeper, who had had a squad of men search the grounds and had found six more traps concealed at the spots where Jimmy usually played with Duke.

  Two days later, Jimmy had been playing with Duke on the lawn at the front of the house, being too scared now to venture farther afield, when a bullet had ripped through Duke’s fur but had missed the skin.

  Again a search had been made of the grounds, but no one had been found; however, there had been reports in the village that the rector, Mr. James Manley, had been seen near the estate with a gun.

  “Fetch Mr. Hardy, the steward,” said Emily urgently. “Something must be done about this immediately.”

  Mr. Hardy, on being appealed to, stroked his chin and looked worried. “I don’t think it’s just Mr. Manley that’s to blame,” he said. “That Mr. Harris and Mrs. Singleton were putting up at the local inn, and Mr. Harris was laughing and joking pretty freely in his cups about how Mrs. Singleton would be wearing the Manley diamonds at her wedding.

  “Now, we could hail the lot of ’em before the magistrate, but think what a scandal it would cause! And then public opinion being what it is, the lot of ’em would get a great deal of sympathy. It goes against the grain, but I think the best idea would be to give them the diamonds. Look at it this way,” he went on as Emily and Jimmy started to protest. “The dog can’t live forever and they’re going to get the jewels anyway. I would suggest that Lord Storm, being executor, should be allowed to handle the matter. He can tell them as well that they’re never to set foot on the grounds again, and that way Duke will be safe and we can all be comfortable.”

  “Can’t this be done without Lord Storm?” said Emily.

  “I don’t really think so, Miss Winters. Mr. Summers needs to give his permission as well. It’s going against the will, you know, but as long as all parties are agreed, I think we could all agree to it and all keep quiet about it.”

  “Please say yes, miss,” said Jimmy suddenly. “That way Duke will be safe.”

  Emily sat down and folded her hands in her lap and thought hard. Her intellect was telling her firmly and clearly that it would be much the best thing if she never saw Lord Storm again. Her emotions, on the other hand, were weeping and crying and shrieking for just one more meeting. And then it did seem silly to live in a state of siege because Duke owned the diamonds.

  “Very well,” she said in a low voice. “I do not wish to see Lord Storm, but perhaps you could handle the matter for me…?”

  “Certainly, Miss Winters. But just a point of etiquette: I think you should write to his lordship saying you are indisposed and have authorized me to handle the matter. He might not appreciate your leaving such a business to your steward without having any excuse.”

  “Very well,” said Emily again. Would this business never end?

  But there was a further irritation. A letter arrived from the Misses Kiplings, inviting themselves on a visit. Emily sent a chilly note in reply, telling them that Lord Storm would be informing them of what Mr. Summers wanted to do about the diamonds and that they would be invited then, but apart from that they were not welcome at Manley Court.

  Emily was amazed at the insolence of Fanny and Betty. She wondered if they still believed her to be of royal birth after the first shock of the news, but doubted it. Lady Bailey had not believed the story for one minute, after having sorted through all the possible royal personages in her mind, and so no doubt everyone else of slower wit would have done exactly the same thing by now.

  Mr. Summers had to be written to, asking him if he would go along with the plan and, if so, if he would fix a date so that the Manleys could be summoned.

  Finally there was a testy letter waiting from Lady Bailey in which she wondered whether Emily had come to her senses and realized the folly of turning down a man like Lord Storm. There was no mention of Lady Bailey’s previous opinion that the man was a rake. Then she had gone on to complain of the morals of Duke, who, it appeared, had seduced Lord Bellamy’s pet poodle, who had given birth to a litter of shaggy black-and-gold pups.

  At last, Emily was able to escape to her rooms and try to bury her hurt and worry and loneliness in sleep.

  The autumn winds were whipping across the stubble before the final arrangements were made for the delivery of the diamonds. Emily had traveled to London to authorize their removal from the bank. She stayed at her town house for several days, venturing out only a little with her maid to see the sights. London alarmed and bewildered her and she knew no one in society, and so she was heartily glad to escape back to the country.

  And then the morning of the day on which Duke was to lose his diamonds finally dawned. The Manleys, Clarissa, and Fanny and Betty were expected at eleven o’clock. It had been made clear to them that they were to leave immediately after they had received their share of the diamonds.

  Lord Storm was the first to arrive. Rogers informed Miss Winters of that interesting fact, but Emily was frightened to see him alone and said she would keep to her rooms until everyone was assembled in the library.

  At last, at exactly eleven o’clock, Rogers informed her they were all there, even Duke. Emily took a last look at herself in the glass. She was wearing a ruby-colored morning gown with an apron front and jaunty little peasant bodice laced with silk ribbons. In order to give herself an air of maturity, she put on one of the new lace caps she had ordered from London. It was made of India muslin and lace and looked very frivolous, but Emily thought it ga
ve her the air of a dowager and was pleased with the effect. And for a single woman to take to caps was tantamount to an advertisement that she was not looking for a husband.

  Emily experienced a feeling of déjà vu when she walked into the library. There was Mr. Summers behind the table in exactly the same clothes and wig as he had worn for the reading of the will. Harriet was sitting beside James. Neither of them looked around when Emily came into the library. Clarissa was there as before, but this time John Harris stood beside her chair. Fanny and Betty were giggling excitedly on a sofa near the fire. And Lord Storm stood over in a shadowy corner of the room.

  He obviously meant to join the hunt as soon as the business was over, for he was wearing a pink coat, leather breeches, and thigh-length riding boots and spurs. He gave a brief bow in Emily’s direction. His eyes were blank and withdrawn.

  Emily found her hands beginning to shake and quickly sat down as far away from the company as possible. Mr. Summers raised his eyebrows as he looked at her, framing an unspoken question.

  “You may begin, Mr. Summers,” said Emily.

  “This is not of my doing,” began Mr. Summers severely. “Were it not that I have a great deal of sympathy for Miss Winters, surrounded as she is by avaricious people, I would make sure that the will stood and that not one diamond would leave the bank until the dog died.”

  “Get on with it and stop moralizing,” said Harriet, speaking for the first time.

  Fanny giggled and put her hand over her mouth.

  Emily decided to steal a look at Lord Storm’s face and raised her eyes only to find that his were fixed on her, and so she bent down and patted Duke’s narrow head.

  “First, I want you all to sign this document, which says we are all agreed over the breaking of the will. If you will sign first, my lord.”

  “Are you sure you agree to this, Miss Winters?” demanded Lord Storm harshly.

  “Yes,” said Emily quietly.

  He shrugged and scrawled his name. Harriet and James nearly collided in their rush to affix theirs, then Clarissa, and then Fanny and Betty Kipling.